In Australia, preferential voting systems are majority systems where candidates must receive an absolute majority, more than 50% of the total formal votes cast, to be elected. If the absolute majority is not gained on the first count, then preferences are distributed until an absolute majority is obtained.
The term "preferential voting" means voters can indicate an order of preferences for candidates on the ballot paper, i.e. who they want as their 1st choice, 2nd choice and so on.
Full Preferential Voting
The elector must show a preference for all candidates listed on the ballot paper. In some electoral systems which use full preferential voting, the voter can leave one box empty if the voter's intention with regard to the other preferences is clear. The empty box is treated as the voter's last preference, e.g. voting for the Victorian Legislative Assembly.
Optional Preferential Voting
The number "1" preference must be shown and other preferences may be indicated, e.g. voting for the NSW and Queensland Legislative Assemblies.
Partial Preferential
The elector must show a minimum number of preferences as set out on the ballot paper. e.g. voting for the Tasmanian Legislative Council.
The Full Preferential Count
Count ballot papers
Polling officials sort and count formal and informal votes. Informal votes are set aside and do not take further part in the count.
The formal votes are counted according to the 1st preferences given by voters. This is the primary count and the results are made available.
Not all votes are counted immediately as absent, postal and pre-poll votes including declarations received by post after the close of polling need to be processed and checked before they can be admitted to the count.
If no candidate receives an absolute majority (more than 50% of the total 1st preference votes) after all valid votes have been admitted to the count, then subsequent preferences have to be distributed.
Distributing preferences
First (Primary) Count
Formal votes received by each candidate are counted according to where the voter placed number "1" for each candidate.
In this example there are 100 000 formal votes. The absolute majority is more than 50% of the total formal votes cast, i.e. 50 001 votes.
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Sally 33 000 |  |
Jo 21 000 |
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Lee 16 000 Lee with the lowest number of 1st preference votes is excluded. |
 |
Paul 30 000 |
Second Count
No candidate received an absolute majority in the first count, so the candidate with the lowest number of 1st preference votes is excluded. In this case Lee has the lowest number of votes, 16 000. Those votes are distributed to the remaining candidates according to the next available preference. In this case, this is where voters placed their number "2" preference.
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Sally 33 000 + 7 000 from Lee 40 000 |
 |
Jo 21 000 + 4 000 from Lee 25 000 Jo with the lowest number of votes is excluded. |
 |
Paul 30 000 + 5 000 from Lee 35 000 |
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Third Count
Still no candidate has an absolute majority so the counting procedure continues.
Again the candidate with the lowest number of votes is excluded.
In this case Jo has the lowest number of votes, 25 000. Those votes are distributed to the remaining candidates according to where voters placed the next available preference for the candidates remaining in the count.
 |
Sally 40 000 + 6 000 from Jo 46 000 (these will include ballot papers from voters who originally voted "1" for Lee). |
 |
Paul 35 000 + 19 000 from Jo 54 000 (these will include ballot papers from voters who originally voted "1" for Jo). |
Result
Paul is declared elected as he has a majority of votes, 54 000.